An aircraft flight plan typically specifies a departure point, an arrival point, estimated time en route, and various other routing information. The routing information may include a charted or planned flight path including a number of waypoints joined by line segments. An airway may encompass and extend longitudinally with each line segment of the planned flight path. In general, each airway is a three-dimensional corridor within which the aircraft's actual position is expected to remain during flight. Within the United States, a representative airway may have a width of eight nautical miles (NMs) and a height of 1,000 vertical feet between FL 290 (29,000 feet) and FL 41,000 (feet) in accordance with regulatory standards, such as Domestic Reduced Vertical Separation Minima.
Utilizing the planned flight path and the estimated time en route specified by the aircraft's flight plan, an air traffic controller may determine the aircraft's expected nominal position for any given time. Similarly, the air traffic controller may determine the particular segment of an airway in which the aircraft should reside at a particular time. This airway segment defines a spatial volume (referred to herein as the “assigned airspace”) within which an aircraft's actual position is expected to reside at the selected time. In instances wherein an airway is not accounted for by a flight plan (e.g., as may occur during navaid or direct routing), the assigned airspace may be determined based upon the aircraft's flight rules, traffic congestion, the accuracy of data provided by ground-based navigational devices (e.g., distance measuring equipment), and other such criteria.
Conventional avionics display systems visually provide a pilot and crew with a considerable amount of navigational information. This information typically includes the aircraft's current detected position as indicated by navigational equipment onboard the aircraft (e.g., a global positioning system (GPS) device, altimeters, etc.). However, the aircraft's detected position, and thus the aircraft position indicated by an avionics display system, may not correspond to the aircraft's actual position due to inaccuracies inherent in the navigational equipment. Conventional avionics display system do not visually correlate, in an intuitive manner, the relationship between the aircraft's assigned airspace, the aircraft's detected position, and the potential inaccuracies inherent in the aircraft's detected position.
Therefore, to further increase the situational awareness of pilot and crew, it is desirable to provide an avionics display system and method for generating a three dimensional display that visually indicates the spatial volume within which an aircraft's detected position should remain to ensure that the aircraft's actual position resides within the aircraft's assigned airspace. Preferably, such an avionics display system and method would display this spatial volume (referred to herein as the “error compensated airspace”) in an manner that is intuitive and readily-comprehendible. Other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description of the invention and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background of the invention.